Mirror
by Mizer Manakins
Summary: What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror? How out of place could you possibly feel in your own skin? Yamato and Mimi posted NEW Jyou
1. Yamato

**Mirror**

**Yamato**

**By Mizer Manakins**

**Manakins says:** As I was writing Part 3 for Happy Together, I got so… inspired. I have to write this, or I'll probably DIE. No idea where it's going… Maybe it'll be a series of what they see of themselves?…. Maybe it'll be just a one shot. I'll start with the King of all Queens of the Mirror, Yamato Ishida….

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of this… 'cept meh ideas of course.

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If someone were to look at me and tell me what they saw, I doubt it would be anywhere near the truth. If they saw what I see, they wouldn't act they way they do. Everything would be different. I'm just a guy trying to make his way in the world and trying so hard to hold on to the one I love. He's always saying my looks don't matter to him, it's all about what's inside, but if I were to look different, I would act different also. Then the inside of me wouldn't be the same, would it?

I've figured that everyone's outlook on life depends heavily on their outward appearance. If one was to dress as a dirty goth child, one would seem to act like a dirty goth child, because that appearance in the mirror would tell them too. If one were to dress like a cheerleader, unless they were a real bore, one wouldn't be able to resist cheering. It all depends on the look. And I choose to be perfect as I possibly can be.

No matter how hard I try to make this perfection, I always see some sort of flaw, be it a hair out of place, or a cut from that dreaded shaving. I wouldn't unless I had to, but 5 o'clock shadow just looks trashy and is a little too Rambo for my style. Yes, my style.

Mimi swears on her collection of Seventeen magazines I spend more time in front of a mirror than she does, but it takes a lot of time for me to make myself presentable.

It's all about face value in this world. With the exception of a few friends and of course, Tai, you can trust no one, and everyone judges you by how you look. And when I'm seen with my boyfriend, I want them to WISH they were us. So I'm gorgeous? Only on the outside. I hate admitting it, but I'm hiding… I think it's some sort of escape.

My parents divorce ruined my childhood and TK was the world to me. He looked up to me, so I had to paint a picture he could strive to be like. If I was lazy, laid back, and overtrusting of those around me, I'd be the worst possible influence on him he could have. I had to be strong, even thought I rarely ever was. I looked the part, and he admired me.

Maybe it was for the ego boost? Maybe.

Although he won't ever say it, I can't help but wonder if I didn't pay so much attention to my looks if Tai would have liked me at all in the first place. I know it's terrible, but the first thing that leads to just a crush usually has to do with outward appearance, and then you get to know the other one much better, correct? If I wasn't so meticulous about my morning routine, he might have overlooked me and went for MIMI.

Hey, we were young. Anything could have happened.

I know how much it just means to myself to see what I've done. If for a day I went without hairgel, I'd probably die. It's just so addicting to get up the ugly Yamato and pretty myself up for an hour or two until I'm the sexy Yamato Ishida.

Call me narcissistic if you must, but it doesn't bother me. I look in that mirror and I see a star. I could rule the world with that face, and I intend to. As a musician, you rarely get anywhere unless you have talent AND a pretty face. (Unless you're in one of those dirty old grunge bands. NOT my style.)

And no, I'm not shallow. I just know the power and ease of being pretty. People get you places if they like how you look, and it just makes life a little less hard. It's bad enough when people give me crap about Tai. I mean, really, you DON'T talk bad about him unless you either REALLY hate him or you REALLY hate me an REALLY don't value your life. But if it diverts their attention from the fact that I have a boyfriend to the fact that I'm just really good looking, it works.

I have nothing against other people who DON'T really care about their looks, but it bothers me when they preach to me about beauty only being skin deep. I KNOW that. I'm not OBSESSED with my looks. I just understand what they can to do help me. I'm sure they don't think about it from my point of view.

It's nothing but a mask. Everything they see is false. I've always hated the idea that people might know what was on my mind, so subconciously I built a defense system that prevented any of those emotions appearing on my face. If I smile at them, it doesn't mean I'm happy.

Maybe the reason I love this exterior appearance of me is the fact that it's all fake. Every bit of it is fake, and since it's me, but it's not me, it makes it interesting. I feel so out of place when I see myself in the mirror, and it's almost like it's not me I'm looking at. I see this being, not myself, who strives for nothing but perfection.

I love perfection, and I try so hard to be perfect, but when I take a step back and look at it all, what is perfect? Every definition I've come up with has some flaw or another, therefore it CAN'T be perfect. Perfect means flawless. Everything has to be intact, in mint condition, pitch perfect, the works.

Tai constantly tells me I'm fine the way I am, but how can I believe that? He doesn't know how much work it takes to be like this, and if I was perfect I wouldn't HAVE to take so much time out of my morning to be like this.

He always tells me how much he loves me the way I am, how he wouldn't care if I was the god forbid ugliest guy on the planet, because he'd still love me. How am I to believe this? I trust him with my life, but how can I trust his judgement on my appearance? I love him with all my heart, and if he were to leave me… I would change for him. If there was something wrong with me he didn't like, I would change it and he would be happy.

Maybe I do it to keep him around and interested. If I totally let myself go and gained thirty pounds, grew a beard, and never got a haircut again as I refused to shower, I doubt he'd be around long. I have to stay young and beautiful so he won't want anyone else but me.

And if I were to look different, we would be different. If he were to compliment me, I would know he was lying, because if I don't think I look good enough for him, I don't want to hear him tell me I am. I suppose it's all a matter of self-confidence…

My looks are a sheild from a lot of things, and if I know that a few more things can't hurt me, I just feel better altogether. Especially after Takeru got older and I became less important. It hurt me a lot, but no one had to know as long as I looked good. People usually don't ask me what's wrong unless I look terrible, and if they don't ask, I don't have to tell them.

So maybe I'm selfish? Maybe. I just want what everyone else wants. I want to love and be loved in return, but I would understand if he wouldn't feel the same if I looked like a camel's ass.

The first step in love is attraction by outward appearances and actions. If you look cool, people first percieve you as cool, and first impressions are always the most important and long lasting. People remember who you are by what you look like or how you sound. It's all about identity. If I didn't put so much time into this thing I see in the mirror, I'd just be one in the crowd.

And we can't have that, now can we?

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**Manakins says some more:** Okay, so tell me what you thought. Did he come off as a bit… shallow? I don't think he did, because in the end, it's all for the love of Tai, and he doesn't think of Tai as that shallow, but still, Yama is Yama, and being pretty is part of his life. I might write another part sometime, but a different character… And no, I have nothing against goths (and no, I'm not saying they're all dirty either. I have more against cheerleaders than anything else mentioned here.). It's just Yama having something to say about other fashions against his own.

R&R

Mizer Manakins


	2. Mimi

**Mirror**

**Mimi**

**By Mizer Manakins**

**Manakins says:** Hey! Due to the positive response to Yama-kun, I've decided to write another section of Mirror! Why Mimi? Why not? I don't usually get to write too much about her, but I like her! Schmexy Mimi! And she does just about as much primping as Yama, so as I still get the feel for this series, she just helps it all move along.

When I get enough money saved up after my savings are depleted in January, I'm considering paying Sonnie to make meh a Karen Walker doll… Or Jack. But mebbe later… I want a Hideto doll!

**Dedication:** Once again, Jebbie. Even though I still have a hard time believing it, at least you'll listen, even if you don't really believe it either… I do believe in fairies! I do! I do! And Minni. No More Lollipops.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it already! Now LEAVE MEH ALONE!

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Every time I see them laugh at me, it hurts but… it also makes me want to smack them upside the head with my purse. But I wouldn't put my poor little Louis Vuitton original through that! But I'm not a stupid blonde bimbo. I'm not even blonde, for heaven's sake!

It takes so much to feel like I'm accepted. Two hours in front of the mirror in the morning, thirty minutes of taking it all off at night, cleansing clothes, whitening strips, and making sure my nails haven't chipped during the day.

Carefully chosing the next days outfit, and hoping no one remembers I wore it a few months ago. Then worrying over my bathroom scale, praying that I haven't gained a pound.

It's been like this for as long as I can remember. I've always been preoccupied with my looks, but it has always paid off. I'm usually known as the pretty one of the group, and ever since I've been signed with my modeling agency, I've been able to travel so much. They've gotten me far, and I'm not complaining.

But when I don't feel pretty, or I think I don't look pretty enough, I keep trying and trying. But then it doesn't seem to change a thing.

Sometimes when I see myself, I see someone else. It's like I'm having a freaky out of body expirience, and the person I'm seeing isn't me. But then I can't think of what I do look like if I don't look like that. And then I begin to realize it.

It's just a shell. Usually empty, hollow, and superficial. Somehow I got stuck in that body, and for that moment that I escape… Yet I feel so lost. If that isn't me, then who is it and what am I? What do I have?

I feel like I have done nothing worthwhile this whole seventeen years. I have nothing real to show for myself. Sure, I have all these pictures and magazine ads with my face on them, but that isn't real.

Religion? No, I really doubt it. My mom is and always has been a Buddisht, but I just don't see the point. All this belief of self salvation doesn't match what I've seen and what I know. And since that's the closest thing to real, religion just isn't. I know it may be cliché, but I am one of those who believe that religion is just something people make up to feel better about dying.

But I don't feel I could die. Not saying I feel like I'll live forever, but death just doesn't seem like it could happen. I'm not sick, I don't usually get myself into dangerous situations, I don't tend to have suicidal behavior, and I don't think anybody hates me enough to send an assassin after me, so unless it was some freak accident like being hit in the head by a toilet seat from outer space, there isn't really any reason for me to think I'm going to die. It's just not a thought I enjoy thinking.

Most of the time, when all the material objects seem to matter most, my life seems so wonderful, it almost seems to just come from a dream. From a distance, I haven't a care in the world, and traveling the world is all I ever do.

From a distance, no one can see my worries.

I worry far too much, but cover it up with a smile for the most part. I realize that my friends are different. They have to deal with problems most people don't simply because they choose not to. Yama and Tai… They seem like the picture perfect couple, butYama confides in me. He worries so much about if they'll last and if it was all a mistake. I was there on the phone for over two hours trying to convince him his family would accept him, and then it took two more months of encouragement for him to tell them about his decision.

I worry that maybe I pressured him to tell them, maybe to take the pressure off myself?… I mean, what if I seriously did screw up his whole life because he and Tai aren't meant to be together? How would I live with myself? He could have just gone on and moved on if they ever split and none of them would ever have to know. It could just become a thing of the past, but what if my interference caused fights he never told me about?

Takeru and Kari both. What if by me convincing him they wouldn't care, I actually tore them up inside? I know how bad it is just being the friend of the troubled friend and wondering if it's really the truth and the surreality that surrounds you all the time until it sinks in that there isn't really anything wrong here. They're the ones that have known them far longer than the rest of us. If possibly their hopes and admiration of their brothers diminished, I'd never be able to live with myself.

Tai is a really great guy and he's been a wonderful friend to all of us for years now, and I don't think he would ever hurt Yamato intentionally. He's always been meaning well for everyone around him, or at least, that's how it always seemed.

But what is it that makes him think that he can come and talk to me? We've been friends for some time now, but when we were younger, we never seemed to bond all that well, and now he's tellng me everything I could possibly know about him. But I suppose it's all for the best. And it keeps me human.

When we just talk, not about anything in particular, but just about life and what we think and what we know… it makes me feel like maybe I do have a purpose.

But what purpose? To Yama, I'm his confidante, yes, but if I did not exist, perhaps none of this would have happened? Perhaps Tai could be in love with Sora and Yamato might have a girlfriend? So many things that went wrong may of never happened, and maybe he wouldn't be so stressed all the time, even with the thought that he might not have anyone to go to… But maybe if I didn't exist, someone else would have turned out like me. Is that possible?

If I were to disappear, who would be in those magazines? Who would have sat in that plane seat? Who would have been there wrecking my friend's life?

I feel I have, sometimes. I wonder if maybe things would have just blown over if he never knew Tai liked him, if he had never told everyone. He doesn't have any regrets, he tells me, but what if he's only trying to be a good friend by NOT telling me I really just ruined everything?

How would Jyou be if I never existed? Would he have been so shy all the time? I turned him down so many times, I'm not sure if he just gave up and found another love or resorted to the first person that ever felt anything towards him. He was my friend, but would he have been more confidant if he hadn't been constantly rejected?

I don't feel pretty at all.

I feel sick. Sick of this lie. But isn't that what my whole life seems to be? I look at what I've done, and it just seems like almost nothing made any real contribution to the world. My friends may have been better off without me, so… maybe it's time I try and do something useful with my time.

Perhaps I should become a spokesperson for a charity.. then I could do what I know best – talk and look pretty – for an actual purpose. Maybe I could help raise money for uneducated children in third world countries? Or join the Peace Corps? Maybe not… I know I'm a little too high maintenance, which just makes me even more ashamed of myself. I've wasted so much time in front of this damn mirror. When I could have been even THINKING of something worthwhile to do with my time, I wasted hours a week in front of that damn mirror primping to impress boys!

Ten years from now, I just wonder, what will I think of these days? Will it all seem so trivial that I'd rather forget it?

I want to be something more.

**

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Manakins says some more: Okay! While everyone else is downstairs watching some movie that just strenghtens that stereotype that skaters are stoners with no life or brains, I just had to come finish this. Mimi is just so… pink? No, something I can't quite put my finger on… but I just have to wonder what she's REALLY thinking at times. No one is that happy unless they're faking it. I just had to give ya'll SOMETHING, because although I only had a few reviews on that first chapter, I liked what ya'll had to say, and decided maybe I should try another one.**

R&R

Ja

Mizer Manakins


	3. Jyou

**Mirror**

**Jyou**

**By Mizer Manakins**

**Manakins says:** Jyou's just such a fascinating character… I just have to write one for him! I mean, he's actually really interesting if you pay attention to when he's NOT in a group not one to stand out too much… but… here we go. Now out with the t.A.T.u. and PuffyAmiYumi… my inspiration musics

**Disclaimer:** For the last time, I do not own Digimon.

**Dedication:** This one goes to MINNI!

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I must have learned to live with myself quite a while back, because if I met me, I'm not sure I'd like me very much. Always trying to live up to the expectations of others. My parents expect so much of me, and I know what a failure of a son I am. But they just don't know how much of a failure I really am – that's only because I've never had the guts to actually tell them anything like this.

No matter how much I'm told that I'm NOT a failure – my friends insist that – they just aren't seeing what I'm seeing. From the time I was very young, I knew what was expected of me: I'm supposed to get good grades, go to the best college available, get the best scholarships and not be a burden to my parents, grow up, move out, marry a 'nice girl', and give my dear parents grandchildren.

Well they have two sons, so it's not all up to me. And if something happens to my brother, their dream is completely KAPUT. I'm just the shameful son they don't know they had.

Just plaster a smile on my face, or cover it with a book, and you'd never notice me. Of course, what everyone else sees on the outside isn't anything about what I'm feeling. I'm just envious of them all… able to be who they really want to be. I've got these goddamn expectations hanging over my head like a sword on a string. One step out of line, and I'm done for.

It hurts sometimes how no one seems to expect anything more than what I'm expected to be like. I know if everyone would just lay off, I could be so much… else. Just admitting I had fallen in love with a certain friend of ours was bad enough, and he still doesn't know. I just am not that brave to go and say something like that. Hell. I haven't even told him I'm gay. Some friend I am – always keeping secrets like this… when he's the only one I feel is sometimes listening to me. He's something of a 'best friend', I guess you would call it, but I feel sometimes that title has too many restrictions.

To think that someone like him could see something good in someone like me. That's absurd.

But there's that attitude again… the one that tells me that I'm just going to end up all alone for the rest of my life. Is that right? I mean, if I'm not careful… or maybe it should be me being LESS careful. I realize now that if I keep up this guard, I'll never be able to really open up again… I mean, excluding embarrassing breakdowns, but aside from those, I just don't feel like expressing anything.

I want to… but I hate feeling completely embarrassed, and that's usually how things go with me. It certainly didn't help that all growing up I just felt so AWKWARD around everyone, particularly the girls – I was SUPPOSED to be crushing on them, right? Which just made things even more difficult, and I'm sure the 'crushes' I had were simply an excuse. It only makes me think more about everything else.

Maybe I really do fail at everything. Mimi insists there's nothing wrong with me, but I there is – she just isn't seeing anything on my level. She's see the outside me as a friend and all, but that's just not how things are. She tells me I don't have to live up to my family's expectations, but what else do I have? It's just become a part of me… whether I like it or not. Which I don't. I hate it. And I hate how it's made me out to be. I don't want to be known as 'Jyou, the future doctor' for all eternity. I hate it… and I hate the fact that it feels like so much is missing. I can't love anyone who really loves me, because I'm afraid if I even dare to say anything, I'll just get my heart broken and I'll be reduced to nothing all over again. I do not want that to happen. So I get stuck behind this barrier… My fear of rejection?

I don't want this…

But it never seems to be about what I want – it's what's best for the rest of the group or someone else, or just what somebody else wants, be it for themselves or me. But it's never really seemed to be about me, and no one expects me to have anything to contribute to their ideas, is that? I'm just supposed to be the 'brain' or something? And it really gets on my nerves…

It's all about restrictions. My fears are all fed by restrictions, and I simply feel like I'm never listened to or taken seriously on anything but.. stuff 'Jyou the doctor' would know or care about. I'm NOT Jyou, the Doctor. I'm JYOU KIDO. I don't get why people can't seem to get over that.. I'm my own person… but since I don't feel like it at times, perhaps they're seeing something completely different than I really am. It's quite possible, I know, but I can't just tell them who I am – if anyone wants to really know, they'll have to really try and look deep to find me… I guess I do like it better that way – if someone wants to be close to me, they'll have to really be interested in me to find out what I'm really like. I'm okay with that.

But I know I'm terrible at conversation with new people. How the hell am I supposed to go on in life trying to be a REAL person if I can't talk to anyone without alienating them? I'll just go and say something stupid and they'll get a vibe I don't mean to send off, but I do anyway. It's unintentional and everything, but I just screw up, and constantly, it feels like I'm kicking my self over and over just for being STUPID. If I could get over that…

I see myself as nothing but… a complete phony. If I'm having to hide my real hopes and dreams, what the hell am I living for anyway? Nobody knows me for who I am.

Except... I want him to. I want Koushiro to notice me for a while, and maybe I can get to know more and more about him… and I want him to know me.

Is that how it's always going to be? Me always hiding behind my parents' goals for me and only wishing to let someone in on the occasion that I happen to LIKE them? I want to make sure I have real friends, but I just get nervous and afraid that trust may be a bad thing – Perhaps I'm too wary for my own sake, or maybe its all justified.

If I never step outside of this box, I may never know, but then all those other things come to mind – I want to be someone else, but I'm afraid no one will accept it and constantly think of me as 'Doctor Jyou' despite what I say or do, or maybe I'm right in thinking that everyone will just reject me period, decide they don't want to put up with all my fronts, and I'll be alone.

Being alone is one thing, but being alone because of something I caused to happen is something completely different. So of course, I'm afraid. I admit, that I am a tad bit more open around closer friends, but none of them can see beyond that spazzy exterior. Worrywart I may seem, they only see me worrying about unimportant things, instead of all that's on my mind now.

And I'm left wondering – could I change? I could change, yes, but could I change and would he still be interested in getting to know more about me, or want me to know about him?

If I change, would I be accepted?

If I change, could I ever find the love I want?

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**Manakins says some more:** Heheh… I spend the whole time writing this listening to Malchik Gay… funny, but it's a tragedy – being in love with a straight girl…sigh such a trauma. But poor Jyou – I love the guy to death! Review please!

Ja

Mizer Manakins


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